Not putting all your eggs in one basket--or focusing all your resources/time/efforts in only one area--is a wise piece of advice not only in life, but also in finances. Often, I work with clients that have built up a chunk of cash in a savings account and have never invested it because 1) they're scared of losing money or 2) they aren't sure how to invest it. But putting all your eggs in one (cash) basket could actually lose you more money in the long-run.

If you have money in a savings account with a traditional bank currently, you're most likely making 0.01% in interest each year. This means if you have $10,000 in savings, the bank is giving you $1 a year! If you're savvy, you've taken the extra step to put your savings into a high-interest savings account (examples: Ally, CapitalOne360, Synchrony, etc.), which currently pay ~1%. With $10,000, that's the equivalent to $100 of interest earned per year. Better than a traditional bank, but nothing to be jumping for joy about.

Ever hear about a thing called inflation? Feel like things are more expensive today than they were 10 years ago? Inflation is the reason for that. Inflation represents the rate of increase in the prices for goods and services. Over the past 10 years, the rate of inflation has been increasing on average 1.8% per year. The current rate for March 2017 is 2.4%! (Tip: Use this as negotiating power with your company if you don't receive a cost of living adjustment each year to your salary!) Due to compounding interest, this means that if you left $10,000 in your savings account 10 years ago, it'd actually be "worth" 19.3% less today because the prices of goods and services have gone up by that much over the past 10 years.

So what does this mean as it relates to building wealth? It means that if you want to keep your purchasing power strong, you'll need to find other means to grow your money faster than the rate of inflation--that is, investing. Many millennials have been scared to dip their toes in investing, particularly because they may have seen what happened to their parent's retirement plans during the last financial crisis. Note: If they had stayed invested since, those balances have recovered, and then some. Figuring out what sorts of investments are right for you is a discussion you can have with your financial advisor. But as a simple exercise to illustrate the potential upside of investing your money, if you look at the rolling 10 year average of the performance of the S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of the largest US companies, over the past 100 years, there have only been 4 10-year periods of negative performance. And the annual average return has been ~10%.

Obviously, past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, and it won't be as if you make 10% every year if you invest your money. But if you don't have an immediate or near-term (within 5 years) need for cash (to pay for a down payment, buy a car, pay down credit cards or pay off high interest student loans) and you already have set aside an emergency fund, you may begin considering taking some eggs out of your cash basket and investing them.